Australia set to snub Champions Trophy

Saturday 19 January 2008 00:08 BST

Australia appear on the verge of pulling out of next month's Champions Trophy in Pakistan after it was revealed last week's meeting with the International Cricket Council failed to ease players' fears regarding security in the strife-torn country.

Australian players and officials met with an ICC delegation in Melbourne last week.

"Our position is that we can't recommend the players tour Pakistan for the Champions Trophy," Australia Cricketers' Association boss Paul Marsh told The Daily Telegraph.

The delegation, which included Pakistan's Australian-born coach Geoff Lawson, had sought to provide enough evidence of the security measures in place for the eight-team tournament, which begins on September 12, to ease the Australians' nerves.

But Marsh said: "Obviously we put a position forward a few weeks ago (to the ICC) to this effect but we said we would keep an open mind with the taskforce, which we did.

"We heard them speak on Friday. Now we have had a chance to digest it all, our position hasn't changed. We have concerns with every aspect of this (tournament) at the moment."

Those concerns would not have been aided on Tuesday when a suicide bomber killed 23 people in a hospital in Peshawar, just a day after Pervez Musharraf stood down as Pakistan president.

CA chairman Creagh O'Connor, chief executive James Sutherland and ICC president David Morgan met in Beijing on Monday to discuss Australia's participation, but reports in Australia suggest CA will back their players.

That has opened up the very real possibility that the tournament will be shorn of its defending champion with the participation of New Zealand, South Africa and England also in doubt after all three convened for similar meetings with the ICC in the past week.

Australia is expected to await the outcome of those meetings before making a decision.